### Light blue roses in Bali: the pale shades are the least forgiving A rose has no blue pigment of its own, so every stem in this category began as a white one. Deep shades hide a great many small errors under sheer density of colour. Pale ones hide nothing, which is why a light blue rose gets judged more harshly than a navy one. Pale dyeing is a matter of degree, and degree is difficult to repeat. Two bunches from the same supplier can look like different products. #### What unevenness actually looks like On a good stem the colour sits lightest at the centre of each petal and gathers slightly along the veins, so the eye reads a soft wash. On a rushed one you get blotches: a dark thumbprint of colour on one petal and almost nothing on its neighbour, or a hard line where the dye stopped climbing. Creased pale streaks are a different fault and mean the head was sprayed while it was partly folded. Neither one is dangerous. Both are visible at arm's length, and at pale intensity there is nothing else for the eye to look at. So the bunch gets checked before it leaves. Distance changes the verdict as well. Held at arm's length a blotchy stem is obvious, while from the far end of a villa room the same bunch reads as one soft colour, so we ask where the flowers will be seen from before rejecting anything. #### Where it is going, and who opens it Delivery takes 90 to 150 minutes for Seminyak, Canggu and Sanur, and up to 3 to 4 hours for Uluwatu, Tabanan and the remote villas. Above 30 °C and in high humidity we use firm wrapping and a cooling element. - A villa in Seminyak or Canggu. Ask for the vase to stand indoors, since direct sun breaks dye down faster than it breaks down natural pigment. - A hotel room in Nusa Dua, where the light is even and a pale shade holds its tone for the length of a stay. - A dinner in Ubud or a venue in Jimbaran: the bunch is seen once and at close range, so evenness counts for more here than anywhere else. - A remote address out towards Tabanan or Uluwatu. Morning slot, and a phone number for whoever opens the gate, because a wrapped bunch waiting in the sun is the one thing this shade cannot take. Orders start from 650000 IDR. Payment goes through QRIS, GoPay, OVO, DANA or cash to the courier. Delivery runs 9 AM to 10 PM. The wrapping stays dry and stays closed until the flowers are indoors. Damp paper against a dyed petal lifts colour off it, and on a pale shade the patch that leaves behind shows at once. Ordering ahead helps this colour more than most. A pale blue at a particular intensity is a dye job, and a dye job takes time nobody should compress. Two or three days of notice lets us turn down a blotchy bunch instead of sending it because it is the only one in the cooler. Two deliveries a week apart will not match each other. A villa on a standing order gets a slightly different blue every time, so either the drift is accepted up front or the roses go white and something else in the bunch carries the colour. > "Nobody complains that pale blue is the wrong colour. They complain that one stem in ten does not match the other nine." > JFLOO florist Tell us the district, the room and how much variation you can live with. Light blue roses in Bali are sorted stem by stem against that answer, and we say what came out of the bunch.